ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – It will be officially announced today that one of the area’s most toxic sites, which has loomed over a neighborhood for decades, will finally be cleaned up.

It’s the Carter Carburetor plant on N. Grand next to the Boys and Girls Club.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Rep. Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, are set to announce they’ve made a deal with the site’s owner for a $27 million remediation of harmful toxins there.

“Ever since the beginning, we have asked the question: what has the health implications had on this community and the former employees who worked here? Their families should know that,” activist Romona Taylor-Williams says.

“It’s very depressing to have sites like this sitting in our neighborhoods,” neighbor Loletta Zasaretii added. “To us, it sends a message that the city doesn’t really care about us.”

The 10-acre plant once employed 3,000 people before closing in 1984. The soil beneath it is contaminated with trichloroethylene, known as TCE, as well as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Above the soil sit the buildings, containing asbestos.

Zasaretti says she would like to see the site be used to create jobs rather than another baseball field.

“The community wants to see this thing gone and we want to see it cleaned up and cleaned up in a responsible and safe way and then we look forward to what the property is used for in the future,” Taylor-Williams says.